In the art, there are problems involved in automatically supplying washing machines with a treatment agent in the form of e.g. liquid detergent or bleach where the detergent is flushed down directly into an inlet hose of the washing machine. A main concern is that aggressive chemicals will act on the rubber inlet hose thus causing corrosion. Corroded hoses will cause significant damages to vital internal parts of the washing machines such as e.g. motors and sensors. This problem is particularly evident in professionally used washing machines, where chemicals utilized generally have a tendency of being more powerful than those included in off-the-shelf detergent used in home appliances.
A solution to this problem has been to connect water supply of the washing machine directly to a detergent chamber located at and accessible via a top aperture on the washing machine. Hence, as is shown in FIG. 1, a water supply hose assembly (not shown) for supplying a washing machine 10 with water are attached to nozzles 11 of an aperture 12 of a detergent chamber 13. The water supplied via the nozzles 11 will thus flush the detergent chamber and dilute potentially aggressive chemicals before they travel from the detergent chamber via the previously mentioned rubber inlet hose and further into the washing machine.
A problem with this solution is that the water supply hose assembly attached to the nozzles 11 of the washing machine 10 must be removed every time the washing machine is to be serviced, which in addition to being time-consuming and tedious further exposes an operator to potentially injurious chemicals located in or in connection to the detergent chamber. Further, having the detergent chamber arranged as in FIG. 1 makes the chamber easily accessible to non-qualified personnel.